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Dengue Fever Spirits Have Given Fair Warning
Wednesday August 3, Donna went to bed with a fever the previous night, and woke with a fever, aches, flu symptoms – not a good sign in a dengue fever area. Stony, our North Carolina coworker, and Suntea, a Karen coworker borrowed a truck and we all went to the hospital. By the time we got there, I was feeling worse and worse, so both of us had blood drawn to test for dengue fever. We were both positive!!! Locals and foreigners have lived here for years and have not contracted dengue fever. We were in Mae Sot and contracted dengue, both of us, the second week at the same time!!!
Dengue is kind of a two part disease, the first part, dengue fever, for us, was 2.5 days of feeling miserable to very miserable (fever, head aches, joint pain, vomiting, …). When the fever leaves, and you feel good again, the dangerous possibly life threatening symptoms might begin. One of the main effects of dengue fever is to reduce platelet count in your blood. When the fever stops, the platelet count can keep going down which can lead to hemorrhaging in various organs (be careful brushing teeth and picking you nose).
For my last blood work in USA, the acceptable range for platelets was 140 – 415, mine was 181. The doctor on Day 1 said he wanted to keep platelets above 100, my count was 107, Donna's slightly higher.
The following days we had blood drawn daily, and tested, once platelets stopped going down, and start going up, and we had not developed hemorrhagic symptoms, then we would be on the road to recovery and leaving the hospital. The turn around did not happen fast, and after the fever left, were feeling good and ready to get out. Every day we waited for the results.
Day 5 – Roger's count was 25, Donna's 32, how low can we go, still no symptoms (headaches, diarrhea, vomiting).
Day 6 – Roger's count was 11, Donna's 36 (a turn around for Donna!!!!!)
Day 7 – Roger's count was 7, still no symptoms, apparently the count can go very low, the doctor said other patients do get this low but the usual is down to around 50. We had great hopes for a turn around, the “platelet count” equals platelets / 1000 per so much blood, so the count can go below 1, and still have platelets.
Day 7, second blood draw – Roger's count was 9. At least not down, but kind of a sideways motions. One more day to make sure it is going up.
Day 8, Roger's count was 14. We get discharged today but need to stay in town for 5 more days, taking medicine to prevent hemorrhaging, and then get another blood test. If the platelets are near normal, then we can travel. In the meantime: only soft food, no fried food, no spicy food, no alcohol, no bike riding, no trauma, no sudden moves, no thai boxing, no sword fighting (I made up those last two but I am sure the doctor would agree).
There are four strains of dengue fever. If you contract one, contracting another form will result in a much more severe reaction. We barely survived the first encounter.
We got the disease the second week we were here.
We both got the disease.
We were diagnosed with the disease the same day.
We both had unusually bad reactions and slow recoveries.
Any one of the above occurring is unusual. Given all of the above happened to us, it seems like the dengue fever spirits have given us a strong warning. We are taking heed and are leaving their territory, forever. Such a decision eliminates visiting large parts of the planet, but the world is a big place, plenty of places to go. Maybe back to the arctic where one can see the life threatening creatures, the bear and the moose, that might threaten you life.
Our six month planned stay in this area with Border Green Energy Team ended in less than two weeks. Got to be flexible on these projects, few turn out as planned. There may be a couple more postings in this blog but our project here has ended and we are figuring out how and when to vacate the tropics.
